What is it about early-year film festival darlings that so often makes them disappointing when they’re finally released several months later? Is the buzz too much too soon? No film could sustain multiple months of hype and live up to the ridiculous expectations that much anticipation brings — though perhaps the success of Barbenheimer says otherwise. Is it the dearth of interesting new releases in January and February that makes anything halfway decent blow audiences away because the bar is so low? Whatever it is, the winter festival hype has claimed another victim.
Ira Sachs’s “Passages” finally gets its US release 8 months after its buzzy premieres at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals. The reception wasn’t overwhelmingly positive, but it was generating a significant amount of conversation, specifically around its uncompromising portrayal of sex, sexuality, and messy relationships. A few months later, the film was back in the discourse when it was given an NC-17 rating by the MPA. That’s when my intrigue really began.
Ratings assigned by the MPA are basically meaningless these days. PG-13 is essentially the PG of two decades ago, R-rated films are shocking only in the sense that they are shockingly tame, and picking up an NC-17 rating is essentially just a marketing tactic for films that may not generate any buzz otherwise. And yet, in an American film landscape that is increasingly sexless, I was suckered in. I would have seen it regardless given its festival buzz, but now (perhaps foolishly) I had expectations. I wanted something provocative, something risky, something different. As the credits rolled, the only thought that went through my mind was “That’s it?”
There’s nothing wrong with “Passages.” It’s a perfectly passable, intimate drama that tries to tell its entire story through suspicious looks and offhand dismissals. The sex scenes are erotic and refreshingly naturalistic — here the act of sex itself is stimulating rather than an over-stylized presentation. But if you keep expecting the film to kick into another gear, to show you why it might be worthy of any bigger conversation, you’re going to be disappointed. Sachs overuses restraint to make his work more subtle and realistic, but all it does is blunt the impact of whatever emotional response the filmmaker is trying to provoke from the audience.
Sachs’s film can’t be blamed for expectations it didn’t bring upon itself, and it’s important to try and meet a work of art on its level rather than judge it based on your desires and expectations. However when you expect and desire something new and different from a film and it instead gives you nothing you can’t get in any half-decent romantic drama from the last 5-10 years — though the sex scenes are a welcome addition that gives it a slight bump above the rest — that is fair game for criticism. Then, the film isn’t failing to meet your unwarranted expectations, it’s just failing to be anything special. Overly harsh? Maybe. But it makes the film forgettable in a way that its provocative core should never be.
